France Found Guilty of Failing To Meet Its Paris Climate Accord Commitments (cbsnews.com) 152
"Four environmental groups are crying victory after France was found guilty of failing to meet climate change goals it committed to in a historic accord signed in and named after its own capital city," reports CBS News:
The Administrative Tribunal in Paris ruled Wednesday that France had fallen short of its promise to reduce greenhouse gases under commitments made in the 2015 Paris Agreement, and was "responsible for ecological damage." While the court declared the government guilty of inaction, it rejected a claim for damages by the four NGOs that brought the suit, ordering the government to pay just one symbolic euro to them instead. The tribunal also said it would decide within two months whether to recommend any measures for the government to resolve its failure to meet its own commitments...
Former Green Party leader and cabinet minister Cécile Duflot, who's now the head of Oxfam France, one of the four NGOs that dragged the government into court, called this week's largely symbolic ruling, "a historic victory for climate justice." Oxfam France was joined by Greenpeace France and two French environmental groups in bringing the case against the government. Two years ago, they organized a petition to denounce what they called "climate inaction" by the French state. In just a month they garnered two million signatures, and in March 2019 they filed the lawsuit, alleging failure to act.
In signing the Paris climate accord in December 2015, France committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 40% compared to 1990 levels by 2030, and to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. Last year, France decided to defer that commitment.... The French government issued a statement saying it had "taken note of" the court's decision, acknowledging that initial objectives had not been achieved and promising that a new bill to address the climate would be debated in parliament next month.
That legislation, the government said, would constitute "a new and decisive step in accelerating France's ecological transition."
Former Green Party leader and cabinet minister Cécile Duflot, who's now the head of Oxfam France, one of the four NGOs that dragged the government into court, called this week's largely symbolic ruling, "a historic victory for climate justice." Oxfam France was joined by Greenpeace France and two French environmental groups in bringing the case against the government. Two years ago, they organized a petition to denounce what they called "climate inaction" by the French state. In just a month they garnered two million signatures, and in March 2019 they filed the lawsuit, alleging failure to act.
In signing the Paris climate accord in December 2015, France committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 40% compared to 1990 levels by 2030, and to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. Last year, France decided to defer that commitment.... The French government issued a statement saying it had "taken note of" the court's decision, acknowledging that initial objectives had not been achieved and promising that a new bill to address the climate would be debated in parliament next month.
That legislation, the government said, would constitute "a new and decisive step in accelerating France's ecological transition."
If France can't do this, who can? (Score:5, Interesting)
France isn't shy about running nukes and that's one of the most practical ways to meet output limits. If France can't meet the agreement, who can? Where did they go wrong and what would they have had to do? Install lots of solar too?
Re:If France can't do this, who can? (Score:4, Interesting)
Ship more industry to China and ban cars.
Re: If France can't do this, who can? (Score:2)
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>If you want a greener planet, invest in green tech R&D to reduce the cost.
That'd be a great idea, a hundred years ago when we were starting to understand that we had a problem looming in our future. Or even 50 years ago when it had become quite clear that we had a crisis bearing down on us fast. Instead we did almost nothing.
Now the crisis is upon us - we no longer have the luxury of time to spend another 50-100 years investing in the technology to deal with it. We have a few decades to make dras
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You have made the universal error (deliberate omission actually) of constructing a wet dream taxation fantasy. Where will the money be spent? Exactly how will that contribute to constructing a more sustainable future?
It is not about using the money to make a sustainable future. Rather, it acts as an incentive for businesses to adopt sustainable practices to avoid paying those taxes in the first place. The goal is not to make money, but rather to change behaviour. This is a long-established economic principle.
Re: If France can't do this, who can? (Score:4, Insightful)
What happened, at least in the US, that taxes were for the purpose of FUNDING NECESSARY GOVERNMENT?
It's not supposed to be a fscking tool to steer citizen behavior. In the US, the government is supposed to work for and be answerable to the people, not the other way around.
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It's not supposed to be a fscking tool to steer citizen behavior.
I'm afraid you are mistaken. Whenever you have a tax based on consumption, it has an effect on people's behaviours. Customers will buy less of something if they think that it is overpriced, and businesses have an incentive to change their carbon footprint to reduce the amount of tax on their goods. If a company switches to renewable energy sources then their tax bill goes down. It is simple, and a well-known rationale for such a tax.
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This is true. It's meant to be another 'sin' tax, like the higher taxes on alcohol, smoking, fuel (in some places).
Likewise tax+subsidy has been used, for instance, when the there are higher taxes for highway, but part of that tax is "returned" to states as a subsidy (to cover highways for instance) for states that passes laws that the federal government does not have the authority to impose directly (like seat belt laws or drinking ages).
These are tools for social engineering in the US government.
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You have made the universal error (deliberate omission actually) of constructing a wet dream taxation fantasy. Where will the money be spent?
You have made the universal error (deliberate refusal to understand actually) of not understanding economics.
If the purpose of the tax is to discourage consumption of the resource being taxed, it doesn't matter where the money will be spent.
Now, it would be nice if the money were to be used for useful purposes. But it doesn't actually matter what those purposes are. You could put it toward research into improving the energy efficiency of power conversion systems, or you could use it to pay off debt, or yo
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You have made the universal error (deliberate refusal to understand actually) of not understanding economics.
If the purpose of the tax is to discourage consumption of the resource being taxed, it doesn't matter where the money will be spent.
You have made the universal error (deliberate refusal to understand actually) understanding that it's all about the money. If it weren't about the money, it wouldn't be a tax, it would just be made illegal. THAT's how you discourage consumption. Politicians around the world love nothing better than to have more cash for their pet projects, and this is a golden opportunity. Stop drinking the Kool-Aid and think.
Markets actually work [Re: If France can't...] (Score:2)
You have made the universal error (deliberate omission actually) of constructing a wet dream taxation fantasy.
You have made the universal error (deliberate refusal to understand actually) of not understanding economics. If the purpose of the tax is to discourage consumption of the resource being taxed, it doesn't matter where the money will be spent.
You have made the universal error (deliberate refusal to understand actually) understanding that it's all about the money. If it weren't about the money, it wouldn't be a tax, it would just be made illegal.
People who haven't studied economics often say things like that: if we don't want people to do XXX, make it illegal.
This turns out to work fine if something is universally bad--murder, say-- yes, it makes sense to just outlaw it. But it works poorly when the question is one of balancing out benefits and costs of an activity.
if something has benefits, but also has costs (say, environmental costs), you want to do that trade off. Is the economic benefit of manufacturing X worth the environmental costs of b
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So, if you say "burning 1000 tons of coal will result in YY contribution to global warming, and thus has a cost", if you make the industry pay that cost, the industry itself will optimize that parameter to maximize the benefit and minimize the cost.
Two questions. What is that cost? How will the tax actually but put to use?
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Two questions. What is that cost?
Both good questions.
It would be very useful to quantify the cost. Reifying value (which is abstract) into cost (which is measurable) is how we make trade decisions in economics. And to the extent that you get it wrong, to that extent you will do the trade decision wrong.
How will the tax actually but put to use?
For the purpose of reducing the use of something for which the use results in a damage to society, or to the ecosystem... it doesn't matter.
If "fairness" were your goal, the tax should go to in some way to repay the people who were damage
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Nah they'll continue to consume the taxed resource, just the same way that nicotine addicts keep smoking cigarettes.
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Except very few people have any specific interest in producing carbon emissions - they want to drive around and buy food and widgets - all of which can be provided with a lower carbon footprint. The problem right now is the low-carbon options are still a bit more expensive than the high-carbon ones, so most people will buy the high-carbon ones unless they feel strongly motivated. Change the pricing structure so that they have to pay a financial price for the ecological damage that carbon does, and you giv
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You say that, but is it true? At the moment, it isn't. Infrastructure is a huge problem, and gasoline is cheap right now. Even if you jack up the price to $4/gallon people can still burn it and get by. Going all-electric right now is just not workable. The grid couldn't handle it in most parts of the United States. The actual buildout cost of going all-electric would be astronomical for all the entities that would have to be involved.
There's a reason why the Green New Deal is dealing in dollar amounts
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Yes, it's true. Aside from a few people who roll coal to piss off the libs, nobody cares where the energy they're using comes from. They care about the price.
Jack up the price to $4/gallon, or even $6 or $7/gallon such as in much of Europe - and yeah, most people will make do and keep driving their existing car, for now. But when the time comes to replace the car you can bet they'll be looking long and hard at electric options.
Same for manufacturing and energy production - few producers will immediately
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I just though of another, more immediately relevant comparison for those tens of trillions of dollars: fossil fuel.
We currently spend between half a trillion and a trillion dollars a year on fossil fuels, depending on price fluctuations. In 2019, we got 37% of our energy from oil, 7.5 billion barrels, which would cost about $375 to $675 billion depending on which year in the past decade we take prices from. That's none of the infrastructure and maintenance, JUST the fuel. $5 to 10 trillion per decade.
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Infrastructure infrastructure infrastructure
We don't have enough charging stations locally for more than a handfull of electric cars. Our grid couldn't handle hundreds of thousands of cars charging overnight, every night. It would not work.
EVs work right now so long as they are in a minority.
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You can't build domestic infrastructure that eliminates those ongoing costs, because you'll incur OTHER ongoing costs. That's why people keep burning hydrocarbons. For now, they're just flat out cheaper and easier to use per kWh than alternatives. Bring hot fusion online - which is a big deal right now, by the way - and things change drastically.
I mean, I'm sorry to have to be so blunt, but despite the impressive gains that "alternative" energy sources are making, they're still not there yet for autos, a
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I specifically pointed out that those costs DO NOT INCLUDE infrastructure - that's just the cost for the fuel itself.
And yes - obviously we need to build out new infrastructure - that's kind of the point of the "Green New Deal". However, the transmission infrastructure is badly in need of replacement anyway, it's mostly been completely neglected since it was built out after WWII and is becoming increasingly unreliable.
Fusion would be lovely - but unless I've missed something, nobody is realistically expect
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Yes, they do include infrastructure. When you buy gasoline or diesel at retail, you are footing the bill for the entire supply chain that:
extracts the petroleum
ships the petroleum
refines the petroleum
ships the distillate
and other miscellaneous costs. Someone, somewhere is going to have to pay for the incredible up-front costs of just building out the power delivery systems necessary to handle EVs on a mass scale. EVs right now do not have this cost built into them, nor do charging stations (per se) due t
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That'd be a great idea, a hundred years ago when we were starting to understand that we had a problem looming in our future. Or even 50 years ago when it had become quite clear that we had a crisis bearing down on us fast. Instead we did almost nothing.
When you say we, you mean a very, very few. Those of us old enough to actually remember know that we'd heard nothing about global warming back in the day, and in fact the media was busy (incorrectly) scaring us with just the opposite. It wasn't like we had the internet, to look up this stuff, and who was actually going to go look up the scientific literature.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Not at all, the Earth has seen far worse many times in the past. Just not while humans existed.
But the next 20-30 years will likely decide whether the Earth crosses the tipping point that will cause it to snowball out of control to a hot-house state like existed when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. All the experts who have actually studied the situation in depth say that's what's coming if we continue on our current path, and only a damned fool ignores the experts in favor of politicians and media personalit
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Just to play devils advocate....
Are t
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No, they aren't, because that was only ever a small group given inflated legitimacy in the public mind by the media's voracious appetite for an exciting headline. https://skepticalscience.com/i... [skepticalscience.com]
The broader consensus among those studying the question has agreed on warming since the the end of the 1800s, when scientists first started considering the question - though at the time they didn't forsee our exponential increase in fossil fuel use, so the problem looked to be thousands of years away.
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So, a shift to the way the planet was before the continents aligned to give us an Ice Age?
While it is true that what passes for modern civilization has occurred entirely within an Interglacial of the Ice Age we've been in for a few million years, it is a mistake to assume that this is "normal" for the planet. What it is is a warm spot in the middle of the current cold period in the planet's history. It's not even up to the normal "hot" part
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Yes, over the course of geologic time nothing is "normal".
All that matters for our security is if we can still feed 10 billion people 30 years from now.
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Yes - the hothouse state does seem to be the most stable state for the planet over geologic timescales. But while it's normal for the planet, it is decidedly NOT normal for our species, we were still just clever apes when the last hothouse period ended.
And while the hothouse state might even end up being better for us in the long term, looking at the geologic record the centuries of transition are hell, driving most existing species to extinction, with most of those at the top of the food chain (like us) s
Re: If France can't do this, who can? (Score:5, Informative)
Quick, everybody panic. We must do what yet another demagogue tells us is urgently needed.
We don't need to panic. We do, however, need to understand that there is a problem, and that it would be of value to address it.
Somebody inclined to thinking deeply about issues might wonder just what the economic consequences for the poor and the middle class will be if we increase the cost of all goods and services. Who will bear the real burden of this policy?
None of the proposals for carbon taxes that I've ever heard of are enough to have a significant impact on the poor and middle class.
However, if that really is your issue, ok, put in tax breaks elsewhere for the poor and middle class to make the net change in taxes zero.
Also, since we're taking away productivity,
Who said that we would take away productivity? The beneficial effect of a carbon tax, rather than regulations mandating emissions reduction, is that manufacturers can figure better processes to continue to make goods.
... If you want to reverse global warming, why not just figure out how to set off a volcano every few years? Or set off a bunch at once, give us another 'little ice age' for a century or two?
Ah, now you show that you really aren't interested in rational discussion; you'd rather be ridiculous.
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That would work great if the poor actually paid taxes.
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Not really the point. You can't cut taxes that are 0%.
Re: If France can't do this, who can? (Score:3, Insightful)
All nuke electricity means they started out at a low level of emissions for electricity generation.
This is the problem with "x percent below the 1990 levels." Places with a lot of heavy industry have a lot to lose. Places with no heavy industry left (like Massachusetts for example) don't have a lot to lose and get to preen and lecture to people who do.
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Maybe nuclear power isn't the panacea that some people think it is.
Maybe nuclear energy isn't the devil (Score:2)
I agree with you. And also that maybe nuclear energy isn't' the devil some people think it is.
Same goes for coal, photovoltaics, wind, and even hydro. They all have negatives. Using them smartly and appropriately without scare-tactics or hubris seems hard for media, politicians, and a few vocal people.
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Your link is broken, btw.
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Thanks. Nice map I'll bookmark it.
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The main problem with nuclear is that it takes a long time to build and a long time to profit.
So, dismantling existing nuclear reactors that still have a lot of life left in em is quite a terrible idea, as you will have to replace em with something that can run 24/7, and this ends up being coal in many cases.
Building new nuclear power plants is a bit silly, but disabling the ones we got is absolutely stupid.
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SMRs have been tried for years, nobody has come up with a profitable design yet. The per-unit costs will IMO always kill them. Molten salt was a total fail. Nuclear was supposed to be "too cheap to meter" but it never has been. We still have no reasonable plan for dealing with waste, nuclear already always has cost overruns and waste processing only makes nuclear more expensive, vitrification turned out to be too expensive and dry casks leak.
All nuclear power has is lies. You can't sell it with the truth, b
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Re:If France can't do this, who can? (Score:5, Insightful)
France isn't shy about running nukes and that's one of the most practical ways to meet output limits. If France can't meet the agreement, who can? Where did they go wrong and what would they have had to do? Install lots of solar too?
France's 1990 starting carbon level was already so low that there will not be a lot it can do to reduce carbon farther until carbon-free aircraft become practical. This is just Greenpeace spouting FUD as usual.
Re: If France can't do this, who can? (Score:2)
> This is just Greenpeace spouting FUD as usual.
How so? The French government promised to do something and failed. They are not disputing that they failed.
What in that is the Fear, Uncertainty and/or Doubt?
Re:If France can't do this, who can? (Score:4, Informative)
If France can't meet the agreement, who can?
Anyone who wants to. France may have nukes and that does precisely fuck all for the rest of their emissions beyond power generation. They also have a large industry. They also have cities regularly suffering from serious smog due to the amount of traffic.
Don't fall into the trap of thinking you can fix climate change with "this one simple trick". You can't. We as a species have an incredible diverse number of ways we are fucking the planet and the French are no exception.
Re:If France can't do this, who can? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's because the accord makes zero sense. France is one of the most green countries in Continental Europe [electricitymap.org] - but they had to 'reduce' like everyone else, even though they are much better than their dirty neighbors all around. It makes zero sense to expect everyone to reduce the same amount, even those who are already way down the scale...
It's also why it's insane to allow China, India, and the African nations to keep increasing their CO2 output for then next 10+ while many countries are already at the low-end of output. It's like worrying about the scratch on your hand, and ignoring your friend's slashed jugular. Climate doesn't care where CO2 comes from - so address the largest sources of CO2.
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You are only looking at electricity for France, not transportation, heating, and industry. But the more important failure in your argument is that everybody has to reduce CO2 emissions. Those who emit more need to reduce more. If France and Germany both reduce by 40% and France emits less than France also has to reduce less. So setting a relative reduction this very reasonable to me.
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It's because the accord makes zero sense. France is one of the most green countries in Continental Europe [electricitymap.org] - but they had to 'reduce' like everyone else, even though they are much better than their dirty neighbors all around. It makes zero sense to expect everyone to reduce the same amount, even those who are already way down the scale...
Your statement is misleading to the point of being malicious. Yes, electricity production in France is largely nuclear. No, electricity production is not what makes a country green or not. Nuclear in France does not even represent half of the energy use, in fact oil+natural gas +coal are a greater energy supply than nuclear: https://www.iea.org/countries/... [iea.org]
France emissions are about the same magnitude as its neighbors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The car sector in France is massively diesel, and with
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It's because the accord makes zero sense.
Not really.
France is one of the most green countries in Continental Europe - but they had to 'reduce' like everyone else, even though they are much better than their dirty neighbors all around. It makes zero sense to expect everyone to reduce the same amount, even those who are already way down the scale
If they actually hit their targets maybe it would have helped tackle their smog problem. Plenty of fossil fuels are still being burned in city centres. Much better to
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but they had to 'reduce' like everyone else
They didn't have to do anything. They opted to sign up to the accord. And that is to their credit. While France is ranked 6th in emissions per capita in Europe they chose to better themselves and the planet though the decisions of their democratically elected leaders.
Unlike say the USA which just wants to keep fucking up the world for profits.
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Unlike say the USA which just wants to keep fucking up the world for profits.
FWIW the USA is currently meeting targets, though it is probably due entirely or almost entirely to Covid. However, the pandemic is going to continue to be a crisis here for at least a year, probably longer, so that may continue to keep us on track for the next year or so.
While France is ranked 6th in emissions per capita in Europe they chose to better themselves and the planet though the decisions of their democratically elected leaders.
Except they have not done so, that's what this story is about! Despite contraction due to the pandemic, France isn't meeting its targets!
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Did you notice that your source hasn't caught up to the regime change?
Re: If France can't do this, who can? (Score:2)
> France is one of the most green countries in Continental Europe
Not exactly a high bar!
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Nobody.
The Paris Climate Accords, like the ones before them, are great shows of public posturing but no actual policies.
These governments don't even have the spare funds from the creaking social welfare bureaucracies to pay for the trivial amounts that they'd agreed to for their OWN DEFENSE.
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I guess they had the nukes already, so they're supposed to reduce their CO2 relative to having those nukes. A lot harder than countries that don't have (many) nuclear power plants, who could--if they decided to--substitute nuclear power for fossil fuels.
I suspect most (maybe all) other countries would also be found to fail in their Paris goals too.
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Actually that's way more complex, and the greens behind this know it first hand, as they are mainly responsible for the situation. So what happened ?
- emissions in 1990 were already very low, because most electricity was already coming from nukes then
- deployment of so-called "renewable" energy sources in the 2000's-2010's actually lead to the building of new gas-powered plants, because renewable energies function approx 25% of the time (no sun at night, no wind very often in summer, etc.). so this actually
The Point (Score:5, Insightful)
"While the court declared the government guilty of inaction, it rejected a claim for damages by the four NGOs that brought the suit, ordering the government to pay
just one symbolic euro to them instead."
So exactly what was the point of the Paris accord again? Also, what is the court going to do when China misses it's goal by a huge margin, which is likely to happen?
https://thehill.com/opinion/en... [thehill.com]
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A Paris court has no jurisdiction over China. This is a French court ruling about France. It has no bearing on the actions of China.
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Yeah my neighbor runs his car without a muffler or catalytic converter. Why should I bother myself?
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Yeah my neighbor runs his car without a muffler or catalytic converter. Why should I bother myself?
Because the cops just wrote him a ticket for $1. Does that make sense?
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The point is being a better person by not polluting with noise and noxious fumes. Everyone benefits.
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The point is being a better person by not polluting with noise and noxious fumes. Everyone benefits.
Cool. Then we don't need the police, nor the Paris Climate Accord, right?
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You definitely rode the short bus to school with the other autists.
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I think the point is that without some kind of enforceable coercive penalty, a climate agreement is pretty meaningless. In the real world you can't rely on a country's word that they're going to play by the rules.
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Re:The Point (Score:5, Insightful)
What your article fails to mention is that China is on track to exceed its goals by a considerable margin.
The way things work in France the government will now be obliged to act, and if it doesn't they can go back to the court for further, stronger action. In Europe the goal is usually restitution, i.e. fixing the problem, not securing an astronomical pay-out.
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China is installing more nuclear plants than anybody else.
That lowers carbon emissions by magnitudes over coal consumption.
China is destroying and changing more land by damning rivers than anybody else.
So what? That does not increase carbon emissions.
China is displacing more of their own people than any other country with their energy projects.
Again, so what?
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It's a wealth redistribution mechanism with lots of virtue signalling.
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Of course it is.
Please vote for me because I'm *pretending* to care about climate change and our party won't wreck the economy like the other mob. Did I mention tax cuts?
In Canberra at least...
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Also, what is the court going to do when China misses it's goal by a huge margin, which is likely to happen?
I'm more inclined to see when the French courts hold the USA to account. After all their emissions per capita far exceed those of China. But it's handy to point at someone people *think* are a common enemy.
Unfortunately while China is a very real economic and production threat, the worlds see through the typical low-effort "BUT JHINA!" posts.
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Does climate care about emissions per capita, or total emissions?
The climate cares about total emissions. Emissions per capita are a social construct that shows who is pulling their weight and fucking up the world the most. Yes Luxembourg needs to do quite a bit. Mind you the climate will be more interested in 320 million people getting their per capita emissions down rather than only 600000.
But as usual LynnwoodRooster, it's everyone else's fault other than your own country's amirite?
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The point is rigtheousness -- both the self-righteousness of those who are on the "good side" and the opportunity to condemn and view yourself as better than those who are on the "bad side".
All modern politics is now a combination of only two things -- signalling righteousness and making money. The Paris Accord gives plenty of opportunity for both, as NGOs can signal righteousness, the courts can signal righteousness, and companies can continue to make money.
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>Also, what is the court going to do when China misses it's goal by a huge margin, which is likely to happen?
Blame Trump, probably.
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>"So exactly what was the point of the Paris accord again?
Virtue signaling.
Meanwhile, the USA still is dropping carbon levels without a president signing some paper that wouldn't have any legal force in the USA (because it is a treaty, it has to go through Congress). Carbon emissions WILL go down in all western countries, even without the government trying to control it. Many, many consumers want it, and therefore, the market WILL respond. It might not be as fast as some people want, though.
One of the
Re: The Point (Score:2, Funny)
Next comes the U.S. (Score:1, Insightful)
Under Trump, the U.S. vastly exceed Paris accord goals.
Under Biden, now that Fracking is cancelled you'll see gristly rising use of oil and an increase in U.S. CO2 emissions. We were so far under target we still might remain under the goal though.
Throughout history, it's very clear that socialism leads to vastly worse pollution and modern times are no exception.
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Under Trump, the U.S. vastly exceed Paris accord goals.
Fact check: ....carbon emissions in the U.S. are the lowest in 35 years. Verdict: True. [breitbart.com]
Throughout history, it's very clear that socialism leads to vastly worse pollution and modern times are no exception.
The Grim Pollution Picture in the Former Soviet Union [huffpost.com]
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Actually, no. Biden didn't "cancel" fracking. He put a 60 day moratorium on new leases so last minute actions by the Trump Administration can be reviewed. Existing operations can continue to frack away.
Trump didn't give a rat's ass about CO2, and never lifted a finger to do anything about it one way or the other -- you don't see a lot of new coal plants going up. Fracking exploded under the Obama administration, because (a) they had energy independence as a goal and (b) it was way better than coal. Whi
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Biden did not ban fracking, I'm amused anyone was misled to believe that.
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Why did Biden ban fracking?
He didn't. The dems love fracking. Its republican propaganda about cancelling some last minute changes Trump made using executive orders while he was a lame duck without any approval from anyone else.
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False, fracking wasn't cancelled under Biden. Joe Biden has not in any way impacted fracking.
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Re: Next comes the U.S. (Score:3)
Throughout history, it's very clear that socialism leads to vastly worse pollution and modern times are no exception.
Lol, what, where did that come from?
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The US has come down every year, except 1 (2018) over the last 12 years. [europa.eu] IOW, under trump, it went up slightly for 1 year.
It even came down more than 10% for 2020. [rhg.com]
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Under Trump, the U.S. vastly exceed Paris accord goals.
Was that before or after we basically shut the place down for ye olde coronavirus?
Before [realclearenergy.org].
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, as long as you ignore emissions due to fracking [nationalgeographic.com]. Which those numbers do.
On the other hand ... (Score:1)
Maybe, like Ted Cruz said about Biden, France just cares more about Pittsburgh than Paris [businessinsider.com] ... :-)
"Voluntary" (Score:2)
Has it ever occurred... (Score:1)
To any proponent of global warming, that fossil fuels are finite. That they will run out and that probably not too far in the future.
So... why freaking panic now? We either get over fossil fuels or flip back to horse and buggy etc. Either way, problem solved.
Re: (Score:2)
*Points and laughs* (Score:2)
This agreement wasn't about medium-sized countries like France or even big countries like China doing anything. It's always been about giving unfair economic advantage to those countries. If climate change is such a big deal, then every country in the world has to do the same things to combat it. It's no different that combating COVID. If the hoi polloi have to wear a mask and can't go to a restaurant, then neither can the snooty well-connected politicians.
I Missed It.... (Score:2)
When did the Senate vote on this treaty ???
This is why nations need to TAX other's CO2 (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Why is CO2 such a problem? It's been much higher in the past
...and, during those periods when it was much higher, the planet did not have ice caps. And the ocean levels were 50 meters higher than they are today.
I live in the middle of the U.S.. In the Devonian, when the ice caps didn't exist, my house would have been underwater.
and besides, it can be easily solved with carbon sinks (trees).
Yes, except for the word "easily". Estimates are that you'd need about a trillion trees to be planted. To get rid of the carbon that we now have in the atmosphere. And those trees would have to be cut down, buried so that they don't rot a
Re: (Score:2)
When is China going to be held accountable?
Never if Chinese trolls, and their far left friends on here have a say in it.
genetically modified organisms, pesticides
Pesitcide IS a serious issue. However, 'GMOs' are not. For example, all 'hybrids' were created by ... hybridization. IOW, sexual combination with other plants. Direct GMO is NOT an issue. The problem is that far left extremists used the term of GMOs to kill off direct manipulation, when they REALLY object to pesticides ( Bayer's round-up being the perfect example).
And there are not enough trees to absorb the current levels of